Parrotfish

First of all, I am glad that there was a book with a transgender character in it to choose from. Being transgender myself, it is nice to be able to see our narratives in young adult literature--an audience that really needs to see novels like these. That being said, it was clear to me that the author of the novel was not transgender herself. While she clearly did research, I felt like she was still lacking a lot of insight into the transgender experience. Also, this is just a pet peeve of mine, it is not "transgendered" it is "transgender". Saying someone is transgendered is like saying someone is blacked, or gayed: it just isn't correct.

All that aside, I thought that this novel has been an interesting read to the halfway point. Grady is a likable character that is clearly dealing with a lot. The text really addresses authenticity--being who you really are in the face of adversity. You can see a positive, yet difficult to deal with, example in Grady who is trying to be himself no matter the cost. Then there are characters like Eve, who are really trying to be someone that they are not. As far as stereotypes go, I am glad that this book centers around a trans-masculine character as the trans-masculine experience is usually forgotten about. It positions Grady as a fairly masculine individual though, which is kind of a stereotype for trans people. I would have liked it more if Grady had some femininity that he had in his personality that would help show the impact of his social upbringing--something that I know affects many trans people, including myself. It also would have been nice to see Grady have some gradient in his sexuality, instead of being straight.

I think that this novel portrays young adults in a slightly drastic, yet fairly realistic way. The kids at Grady's school are absolutely awful, but there are some gems among the muck as well, such as Sebastian. Grady is shown as essentially fearless in his resolve to be himself, which I actually found a bit unrealistic. In light of everything that he is facing, I would expect there to be a bit more anxiety around going to school. That being said, everyone's transition is very subjective and personal; I can not say that Grady's response to everything is not normal, because there is no "normal" when it comes to this. It's just one person's experiences. I think that this text would appeal to young adults because it deals with an experience a lot of students have little exposure to.

Overall, I would have to give this book a B+ so far. It is nice seeing a transgender character, but it is also clear that a bit more research would have helped this book a lot. I still think that it is informing people on the transgender experience in some way though, and for that I think it is an excellent book. A much, much better trans YA lit book, however, would be "Almost Perfect" by Brian Katcher.

Brown Girl Dreaming

I thought that this novel, in particular, was very interesting to read because it was biographical (or at least written to sound like it was), yet it was written in prose/a poetic manner. Dealing with growing up during the Civil Rights movement, Brown Girl Dreaming details the struggles faced by the author. The development of characters are a bit slow in this book--a possible reason for this being that the author takes you through the life of a small child, describing an America being torn at its old and bigoted seams and thrust into an era of White America dealing with the increasing, albeit slowly, equality of Black Americans. The themes of race are extremely prevalent throughout the novel. This novel does a wonderful job of giving the reader insight to an America most, if not all, of us weren't alive to see; it does this in a way that is accessible, and the narrator in the novel seems to be for the most part just a bystander describing the scenery they are experiencing in prose.

I believe that this text positions young adults in such a way that they seem incredibly human. The narrator gives us vivid details on what it is like growing up in a segregated, and then non segregated, America. This is seen when the narrator describes the signs that say "whites only" as ghosts because they are painted over, but only just barely--just enough to cover the words, but not enough to swallow them into history. I would say that young adults in this novel are absolutely not portrayed stereo-typically. I would say that, if anything, the characters in this novel are very realistic--probably because they are real people. That is part of the excellence of this book: it provides you with the lives of not just characters, but real people that experienced and suffered through this time period. This text would appeal to young adults because it shows them what it was like for a person of color to grow up in this racially charged time period. It would also be kind of hard to get the students into the novel because it is written in prose/a poetic manner. It would be something that they would have to be eased into I think, just because they probably are not used to a book being written in this kind of manner.

Overall, I would give this book an A-. I think it is a wonderful book and it deals with a topic that I need to become more educated on, but I think that is has some accessibility issues because of the way that it is written. My qualms are not with the content of the novel, but with the way that is written. That is not to say that I don't like the way it is written, just that it is a bit different than what I, and others I'm sure, are used to reading. I would think this would be slightly difficult to teach to secondary students for this reason alone.

Unwind

Unwind is a very engaging, thrilling, and exciting novel to read. So far, I think that the most interesting part of Unwind is the setting it takes place in: A dystopian world where children can be retroactively aborted between the ages of 13-18 by a process known as "unwinding", where the child still lives--just in a "divided state". I think it is honestly a bit odd, the whole pro-life and pro-choice war stuff, but it really makes for an exciting setting. I like the characters in the novel so far as well, especially Conner. There is just something about Conner that makes him do stupid shit; he routinely short-circuits his brain and decides to do something like "save" the tithe, Lev, or take on a storked baby while the police are watching to see if Conner and crew get on a bus. I think that this text tries to position genders as pretty equal--Rissa is an extremely quick witted individual who is absolutely necessary for the success of the group.

I think that this text positions adolescents in a very strong position. After all, you have to be strong when the whole world is out to get you. Unwinding someone seems like a very unpleasant thing to do and at least some of the characters will stop at nothing to be able to stop themselves from ending up unwound. This text may even position adolescents in a stronger way than they actually are in reality. The events that these young adults go through are staggering, and it seems as though luck is the only reason that they are able to get by sometimes. This extra strong positioning likely has something to do with the fact that the novel is a dystopian text as well.

Overall, I absolutely love this book. I think that it is my favorite book that we have read this semester and I can't wait to finish the book. I would absolutely give this book a rating of A+. I honestly don't know how I have never heard of this book before, because it is such an incredible book. I think that while the idea for the plot is weird, it manages to manifest itself in such a way that it is extremely exciting to read about. It reminds me a lot of the movie "The Island", where there are a bunch of clones of people that are living on this island only so that they can be harvested for organs when their genetic counter-parts succumb to disease or injury. I would very much be interested in reading more novels like this, and I think that you should include more dystopian texts like this into your curriculum, and not books like Feed, because Feed was lame.

Feed

This is by far one of the most interesting books that we have read this semester, as it completely invents its own slang throughout the novel. For this reason as well, it becomes hard to read in points because of language that the reader is not so used to. Having only read part of the novel, I thought it was interesting the way that some of the characters developed. The author seems to have a habit of introducing the names of important characters at a later point in time than most other authors generally do. While it is a futuristic novel, there are some gender stereotypes that seem to still exist, such as guys being interested in football. I also think that the novel could be commenting on humans’ dependency on technology through the device of the “Feed”.  I thought it was very interesting that everyone seems to have a bunch of lesions on them that are just pretty much normal. It was not something that I was expecting from the novel, even if it is a futuristic type of novel. I also thought it was interesting because it is probably the only sci-fi young adult novel that I have ever read, or heard of.  I think that it would be interesting to compare this specific novel with another sci-fi young adult novel and determine what the similarities between the two are. I also found it very interesting that the moon was a rather simple destination to travel to for the characters, and I was especially intrigued by how run down some of the places were in the text. I just thought that in a futuristic novel that some of the areas would be in better shape, but this book had a dystopian feel to it because of these factors in the novel as well.

I think that this text positions adolescents in a way that is difficult to discern at times due to the language being used in the book and how different it is from our own society and reality. Despite this, however, I think that the novel does positions young adults as sort of stereotypically teenagers, with their focus on a lot of the things that teenagers are focused on (i.e. girls, etc.). From what I have read, I would say that they are neither portrayed as weak or strong, but rather just human. I think it is everyone’s dependency on technology that stands out the most to me throughout the duration of the novel.

Having only read part of the novel, I would give this book a B. It is indeed an interesting read, but because of the vernacular used throughout the text, it actually becomes a bit of a difficult read. I did enjoy reading a sci-fi young adult text though, as it is something that I am very much not used to in any sort of capacity.

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Throughout the novel, I was supremely impressed with the writing style by Sherman Alexie. There were so many metaphors and similes that were so powerful sometimes that I had to stop and re-read the sentence because I was blown away by the writing. As far as character development goes, I think that we really see Junior's development more so than any other character, which makes sense given he is the main character. I would have liked to see some other characters developed a little bit better though. Even the characters closest to Junior were developed only to a certain extent. Rowdy, for instance, is a character we know not very much about, and I would argue that we learn the most about him at the end of the novel when him and Junior are climbing the tree in the flashback.

As far as what the text leaves out, I'm sort of at a loss. I feel like there were a lot of different topics covered: Poverty; racial relations; death; alcoholism. There are many more topics, and even more themes, so I feel like Alexie did a great job of weaving all of them throughout the novel. This book really gave me a lot of insight into an Indian reservation--something I am admittedly rather ignorant on.

I think that this text is a lot like John Green's books in that they seem to position adolescents in a very realistic manner. It doesn't show them as particularly strong, or weak--rather, it positions them as survivors. Junior had to experience a lot of death in this novel, and I know that a lot of that was based on Alexie's real life. I think he did an incredible job of providing us with a realistic look into the life of a young Native-American living on a "rez".  I think this book would definitely appeal to young adults because it is humorous and it doesn't skirt around one of the most important issues that young adults face--death. It is also crude enough to appeal to high-schoolers, in my opinion.

Overall, I would have to give this book an A+. Even though some of the characters were a bit under developed, the writing style and soul-rending insight into death make this novel on of my new favorite books. I did not read this book in high school like a lot of other people in the class seem to have, but it is definitely a novel I think that I will re-read at some point. This book also made me not want to touch alcohol ever again, which is probably something that would be good to teach to high-schoolers, if only to delay them from drinking until they are a legal age.

An Abundance of Katherines

Having read another John Green book, "The Fault in Our Stars", I tended to read "An Abundance of Katherines" and compare the two texts. I felt as though I liked the characters in TFiOS better, in so far as that I think they had to deal with more problems than Colin and others in "An Abundance of Katherines".

I actually found Colin to be slightly creepy. I mean, the guy dated 19 Katherines. I'm glad he finally breaks the chain, but dating someone just for their name is pretty dang creepy. Colin also seems to be pretty self absorbed, being far more concerned with living up to his prodigy potential than anything else. As far as developing characters, however, if that is what John Green was going for he nailed it.

There are other stereotypes that are woven into the text. For example, we are given the character of Hassan, who is Muslim. Admittedly, I do not have the most experience with this community so it is difficult for me to determine whether or not there was a completely respectful portrayl of this character throughout the text. At one point, Hassan declares when meeting Lindsey that he is "not a terrorist". This is an example of a situation that may seem questionable in regard to its authenticity. Still, in a group discussion, someone else pointed out that as a person of color, they felt as though Hassan (especially for the time period) may have been justified in making this statement, especially since they were travelling through the South as well, which is likely to be less friendly to Muslim people. Overall though, Hassan is shown as a very human character, participating in the all-time-favorite pass-time of teenagers everywhere--doing a whole lot of nothing.

I think that adolescents in the novel are essentially treated like they are real people. The characters have both redeeming qualities, as well as qualities that are maybe not so desirable, but at the same time realistic. This can be seen, for example, in Colin's insecurities and how he asks K-19 if she loves him. K-19 appropriately responds later on that Colin doesn't need a girlfriend he needs a robot to constantly tell him that it loves him. This sort of insecurity is a quality that we may not appreciate Colin for, but we, as the audience, are able to relate to his character in this way--we can identify the insecurities in ourselves through first examining Colin's.

Overall, I would give this novel a B. It was somewhat engaging, but lacked the serious critical thought that I feel other novels present the reader (in particular, "The Fault in Our Stars", which deals with far heavier topics. I believe that this novel felt too "safe" and that John Green chose to not tackle any substantial issues throughout the novel, but did touch on some universal themes, such as not living up to your potential, and dealing with heartbreak.

Thirteen Reasons (part 1)

There were many aspects of this text that I thought were quite original. The story is about a topic that I am happy to see getting some light shed upon it: the misogynistic way girls are silenced and condemned as being "sluts" based purely on rumors. There were many other aspects besides the plot that I thought were interesting.

The most unique element of the story, I believe, is that instead of just being told a story we are given a scenario where the story has already unfolded and we are left in the position of the main character who must listen to these tapes from a girl who committed suicide. Unfolding this story is essentially the plot of the novel and in this way, it really reminds me of the movie Momento, because how all the events have essentially happened and the main character is just trying to piece every bit of information together.

Another aspect of this novel that I thought was quite unique was the way that the author chose not to separate the book by chapters, but instead by sides of the cassette tapes. The author even goes further and delves into periods of time between the tape playing (indicated by a play symbol), and periods of time where the tape is paused (indicated by a pause sign). I thought that this was an incredibly unique way to organize the book, and I really enjoyed it.

I felt like the book has also done a good job of highlighting issues of gender that are swept under the rug. Too many young females are being sexually assaulted or harassed in some manner and it is a serious issue that needs attention, as sometimes, the person can end up committing suicide in order to relieve themselves of the situation.

I feel like this text positions adolescents in a way that they are seen as real people, who have to deal with significant issues. The death of a high school student is always tragic--especially so when that death is actually a suicide, a death that would largely be considered preventable. I think that this text would especially appeal to young people because of its pacing, and unique writing style. The plot is also incredibly engaging as you are basically finding out all the information at the same time as the main character. I think that adolescents aren't shown as either weak or strong necessarily, but rather as human.

Overall, I would have to give this book a score of an A- so far. The reason that I would give it an A- instead of an A is that I feel like some of the characters aren't quite one hundred percent believable. In particular, I find it slightly hard to believe that a girl in Hannah's situation would be so humorous throughout her cassette tapes detailing the reasons that she committed suicide. However, I suppose that this is completely subjective; often times people resort to humor in order to deal with incredibly difficult scenarios. I happen to be one of these people, and even times when I have gone to the E.R. I made jokes on the way there. I'm not sure this would be a scenario I would be compelled to be funny in though.

Between Shades of Gray

First of all, I really enjoyed how quickly the plot picked up. It was very exciting even from the very first chapter of the book. It is a very engaging story that I think captures the essence of what it meant to be arrested and captured in a time of war. The character development is fairly good throughout the first half of the book; especially in regard to Lina and Jonas. They knew nothing of the extreme death of war at the start of the book, but by midway through they've been steeped in death, which Jonas's scratch marks for the dead children can attest to being true. I couldn't imagine being in that kind of scenario, especially when Ona is shot by the NKVD. To watch a person's life drained out of them in front of your eyes would cause anyone to grow in age beyond their years. I thought this was a great development for the characters that survived though because it really showed them how awful the NKVD can be. I also enjoy how Lina seems to be able to help herself much better than, say, Eleanor from Eleanor and Park. I did not like Eleanor as a character because of her lack of self-agency, but Lina is put into a situation where if she doesn't help herself, then she may end up dead.

This text definitely positions adolescents in a way that you see them as experienced beyond their years, and very strong. You have to be to be able to survive in an environment where corpses are jettisoned from the box cars like fleas. I would say that they most certainly are not stereo typically represented in this book; I believe that this is a product of the environment that the characters are in, as being arrested during a time of war is something that very few teenagers in America would face in present day times. I think this text would appeal to young adults because it is extremely engaging, and gives them insight to how awful times of war can be. It lets them experience a tragedy that they would never be faced with otherwise. I think it would be a great novel to teach young adult students the seriousness of war and death -- ever present themes in the present day world, although most war events would take place in other parts of the world.

Overall, so far I would definitely give Between Shades of Gray a rating of an "A". From the very first sentence of this book, I was hooked. I found the pages bleeding into each other and I was completely engrossed in the story. I think that a story that can have this kind of profound content while still detailing a compelling and narrative is a very strongly written book indeed.

Eleanor and Park (part 1)

Eleanor and Park is a YA Lit book centering around the relationship between two teens, Eleanor and Park. The author essentially throws us into a scenario where we are clearly able to see the social status of each of these two characters. At first, Park is annoyed by Eleanor and thinks of her they way that everybody else does, as essentially a large loser. The development of Park is a major proponent of the book. Even after being exuberant over being able to hold Eleanor's hand, Park still denies that she is his girlfriend when confronted by Tina in proximity to his mother. This is a key part of the story because Eleanor is smart and is able to pick up the fact that Park seems to be at least somewhat embarrassed by her.

Throughout the novel, we are confronted by characters that are more complex than their surfaces appear. At least in regards to Park and Eleanor. I believe the author wanted to highlight the fact that people should be judged by their character, not by their looks, which is why the character of Eleanor is so important -- she is the character that forces the reader to critically think about actions they have taken against people similar to Eleanor -- people that are a bit...different.

As far as plot is concerned, there is not really much going on. We know that the home life of Eleanor is very bad because of her abusive step-father (or surrogate father), and my best guess is that this is going to end up being a major part of the plot. I believe that something bad will happen because of Richie and then Park will be left to fix whatever problems that Richie creates.

I really would have loved to see more plot develop besides just the relationship between Eleanor and Park. There seems to be no major plot in the story that is constant throughout. In this way, I suppose that the book reflects life in that it is simply happening, there isn't necessarily some grand plot to be had. I also wish that Eleanor would have been a stronger character. Don't get me wrong, she has plenty she is dealing with and she is strong for being resilient enough to deal with her home situation, but it seems like her character's worth is entirely dependent on Park. Eleanor thinks very lowly of herself and Park gives her confidence, treating her better than any other boy ever has. Because of this however, Eleanor is more of a static character, unable to be the agent in her own development. I do not like the way the character is dependent on another for growth, and thought that there should have been more moments of Eleanor sticking up for herself instead of letting people harass her or have Park defend her (which she would rather have him not defend her in order to cause the least amount of trouble). I think it is damaging to have Eleanor so dependent on a male character especially, feeding into the stereotypical notion that women need a man in order to thrive.

That being said, the author does an absolutely stunning job of describing the relationship between these two characters. Young adults would find this novel interesting because of the interesting character development and because it focuses on relationships and home problems -- highlighting the fact that the two often go hand in hand.

Overall, I would give the book a B so far. Mostly taking away points because I feel Eleanor could have been such a stronger character by herself and I don't like the fact that the author at least so far hasn't given her character that opportunity and instead drives her further into a relationship with Park to deal with her issues. The author also writes about love in a way that is truly awe inspiring. There were many moments throughout the text where I just had to absorb what was written to truly appreciate the effect of the writing.